Hey everyone. I apologize for posting in the middle of the week – but I was confused and only wrote one blog last week when I was supposed to write two (one for observation and one for week 5).
So, since for my observation, I wrote about a lot of good things – I will talk about one bad thing that happened to me last week.
Well, finally, my one period that I’ve talked about before – the one with the huge mixture of kids – blew up. Four of the boys were failing the class for not taking their Accelerated Reader test. Also, right before they walked in to the class, they were bullying some little boy and ripping his stuff out of his hands and kicking his binder down the hall. First, this is a big deal because they are advanced students so none of them should be failing. Secondly, I had them in the computer lab and bugged them about taking the test and they said that they did. And, thirdly, they also lied to my face by saying that they took them. My co-op punished them by putting them on the “packet” which is what the kids who can’t pass the AR tests have to do – just extra work to make sure that they are reading. I was absolutely livid. If there is one thing that I can’t stand in this world – it is a liar! AHHH! So I moved their seats and gave them a big speech about cheating and lying. Overall, the class has started to become manageable. Now, I am faced with the question that has always been staring me in the face and I’ve never wanted to answer – Are advanced students treated differently than “regular” students?
I would love to hear, have any of you had a classroom management situation where you wanted to rip your hair out? Or scream? Or possibly throw yourself out a window?
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Blog for Observation #1
For my lesson while Dr. Mortimore observed, I taught imagery and the five senses related to poetry. Overall my lesson went very well. I would like to think that 90% of it was me being a good teacher and 10% was because she just happened to observe the amazing class – with the kids who never yell out or do anything wrong.
My lesson began with a review of what we had learned the last time – this is how I begin every lesson. Then I had students begin imagery and we watched Sarah Buxton’s “Outside my Window” and students wrote examples of imagery that they heard in the song.
From there we made a foldable with the five senses and we read two poems from the text book. Students then had time to use the poems and put examples on their foldables.
When I created the lesson, I tried to accommodate many types of learning – I think this is one of my strengths. Students had a chance to listen to me, to their classmates, to poems, and to a song. They got to see lyrics on the board and drawings. They had to make a craft with scissors and markers – hands on. They had individual discussion, group discussion, and a whole class discussion.
My weakness, as pointed our by Dr. Mortimore, is not spending more time with the poems – like talking about their subjects and diving into them. I feel like this stems from two reasons. First, I’m afraid to ask students something that they won’t know then they will feel like losers and I’m afraid of asking them something that will be boring. For example, if I say “What does the tree symbolize?” and they don’t know, then they will feel dumb. And I’m afraid that if I do dive into the poems they will be bored with poetry analysis. Having said this though, today I came up with a great poetry analysis packet that we are going to do – totally ripping a poem apart and seeking themes and meanings. Also, my second reason for not going to higher level thinking is that my co-op has told me before not to push them too hard.
I would say the best part of my observation was Dr. Mortimore telling me that I had really good directions and that all of the students “got it.” Directions were my REALLY weak point during Methods and during my first two weeks. So, it feels good to have gotten something right!
My lesson began with a review of what we had learned the last time – this is how I begin every lesson. Then I had students begin imagery and we watched Sarah Buxton’s “Outside my Window” and students wrote examples of imagery that they heard in the song.
From there we made a foldable with the five senses and we read two poems from the text book. Students then had time to use the poems and put examples on their foldables.
When I created the lesson, I tried to accommodate many types of learning – I think this is one of my strengths. Students had a chance to listen to me, to their classmates, to poems, and to a song. They got to see lyrics on the board and drawings. They had to make a craft with scissors and markers – hands on. They had individual discussion, group discussion, and a whole class discussion.
My weakness, as pointed our by Dr. Mortimore, is not spending more time with the poems – like talking about their subjects and diving into them. I feel like this stems from two reasons. First, I’m afraid to ask students something that they won’t know then they will feel like losers and I’m afraid of asking them something that will be boring. For example, if I say “What does the tree symbolize?” and they don’t know, then they will feel dumb. And I’m afraid that if I do dive into the poems they will be bored with poetry analysis. Having said this though, today I came up with a great poetry analysis packet that we are going to do – totally ripping a poem apart and seeking themes and meanings. Also, my second reason for not going to higher level thinking is that my co-op has told me before not to push them too hard.
I would say the best part of my observation was Dr. Mortimore telling me that I had really good directions and that all of the students “got it.” Directions were my REALLY weak point during Methods and during my first two weeks. So, it feels good to have gotten something right!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Blog #4
I feel like I have so many things to talk about in this week’s blog. But I’m going to talk about differentiation. I will use one of my periods as an example because it is the most diverse class that I have.
So, in this class, there are 28 students, which is a lot for me. I feel very overwhelmed just by the number.
I have two boys who sit up front and center and they love attention. They raise their hands for every question and they often yell out the answer before others get to answer. They are both good kids (don’t harass or use inappropriate language)– just attention freaks. I feel like I might lead them on because I usually stand near them just because it’s the “main” spot to stand to see everyone in the class.
In the back right hand corner I have two boys who are never with me. They are spacey and usually aren’t on the same page as the rest of the class. They are sorta chatty, but not enough to bother others. In front of them are two girls who are never with the class. They seem to just do enough to get by. These are two girls who I still don’t know their names because they fly under the radar.
Then in the back left hand corner there are two girls who are loners and keep to themselves. Despite my many differentiated activities and group work and fun stuff, they still don’t participate in class. They do get good grades on all work that is handed in.
I have one student who is in this accelerated class who should definitely be in a learning support or behavioral support class. She sits by herself.
Oh, and the four smartest 7th graders are in this class. They usually look bored. And I also have two very advanced students who are very quiet.
And then there are the two class clowns who always have something to say and don’t like to take things seriously. But, again, they aren’t bad kids; they just like to goof off.
So, you might be wondering why I’m complaining because these are all great students – mostly participating, all getting A’s. I just don’t feel like I’m reaching to every one of them. Like after my other classes, I just feel like I hit every student’s learning needs because my other three classes only have maybe four largely different styles such as a group that likes to read, a group that likes to draw, ect.
My question is: do you have a class that is very diverse? And what do you do to make sure you are reaching out to every student?
So, in this class, there are 28 students, which is a lot for me. I feel very overwhelmed just by the number.
I have two boys who sit up front and center and they love attention. They raise their hands for every question and they often yell out the answer before others get to answer. They are both good kids (don’t harass or use inappropriate language)– just attention freaks. I feel like I might lead them on because I usually stand near them just because it’s the “main” spot to stand to see everyone in the class.
In the back right hand corner I have two boys who are never with me. They are spacey and usually aren’t on the same page as the rest of the class. They are sorta chatty, but not enough to bother others. In front of them are two girls who are never with the class. They seem to just do enough to get by. These are two girls who I still don’t know their names because they fly under the radar.
Then in the back left hand corner there are two girls who are loners and keep to themselves. Despite my many differentiated activities and group work and fun stuff, they still don’t participate in class. They do get good grades on all work that is handed in.
I have one student who is in this accelerated class who should definitely be in a learning support or behavioral support class. She sits by herself.
Oh, and the four smartest 7th graders are in this class. They usually look bored. And I also have two very advanced students who are very quiet.
And then there are the two class clowns who always have something to say and don’t like to take things seriously. But, again, they aren’t bad kids; they just like to goof off.
So, you might be wondering why I’m complaining because these are all great students – mostly participating, all getting A’s. I just don’t feel like I’m reaching to every one of them. Like after my other classes, I just feel like I hit every student’s learning needs because my other three classes only have maybe four largely different styles such as a group that likes to read, a group that likes to draw, ect.
My question is: do you have a class that is very diverse? And what do you do to make sure you are reaching out to every student?
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Blog #3
This week has gone really well (except for the fact that I have a VERY bad cold). Anyway, I wasn’t really sure what to talk about: LFS, lesson plans, classroom management… But, I think I want to focus on how all of these things come together = aka a very good day and I had one this week!
My very good day was Tuesday, when I started a new lesson on personification. I started planning my lesson by thinking of how I could differentiate (which is one of my downfalls). I tried to incorporate movement, writing, drawing, and speaking. So, then I thought about LFS and I thought: review.
My lesson started with a poem by Shel Silverstein called “The Furniture Bash.” I chose that poem because it is fun and many of my kids love Shel Silverstein and also because the poem has tons of personification. I read the poem out loud and had students guess what we were going to learn about. Many of them guessed personification right away (which helped me gage their prior learning). Then we moved on to a Frayer. I had already used a Frayer twice and the kids really liked it and I like the routine of doing mostly the same thing. I could tell that the lower-level students really liked the Frayers because they could use examples and draw and I think they liked the routine of using the same graphic organizers again. It gave them a sense of ownership.
After the Frayers, I used different poems on the board and we went through them with the students raising one of three different colored papers to indicated simile, metaphor, or personification in the poem. I had never used that activity before but I really liked it because I could see what each individual student was thinking. Then we moved on to previewing three different poems in the text book that we were going to be working with that day. For my lower level classes, we just read the poems out loud and went over difficult vocabulary but for my academic classes we went more in-depth with the poems. From there I made a graphic organizer for students to fill out with similes, metaphors, and personification from the poems (“Students can’t learn without graphic organizers!” – LFS). I gave directions (very detailed with examples – I’m getting better at it!) then students had time to complete the graphic organizer with their partners.
Our last task was a creative representation of a time in one of the poems when the poet used personification. I made an example of a sun painting a picture of a desert because the poem said, “The Sun paints the desert…” The students had so much fun with their projects and I wish I could show all of them to you.
I didn’t have too many classroom management problems because I kept the class flowing. Which reminds me, I finally experienced flow in my class! It was great!
So, I guess the moral of my story today is that I had never realized how much “stuff” goes in to planning and performing a lesson! But I’m starting to catch on and it’s going well!
This week has gone really well (except for the fact that I have a VERY bad cold). Anyway, I wasn’t really sure what to talk about: LFS, lesson plans, classroom management… But, I think I want to focus on how all of these things come together = aka a very good day and I had one this week!
My very good day was Tuesday, when I started a new lesson on personification. I started planning my lesson by thinking of how I could differentiate (which is one of my downfalls). I tried to incorporate movement, writing, drawing, and speaking. So, then I thought about LFS and I thought: review.
My lesson started with a poem by Shel Silverstein called “The Furniture Bash.” I chose that poem because it is fun and many of my kids love Shel Silverstein and also because the poem has tons of personification. I read the poem out loud and had students guess what we were going to learn about. Many of them guessed personification right away (which helped me gage their prior learning). Then we moved on to a Frayer. I had already used a Frayer twice and the kids really liked it and I like the routine of doing mostly the same thing. I could tell that the lower-level students really liked the Frayers because they could use examples and draw and I think they liked the routine of using the same graphic organizers again. It gave them a sense of ownership.
After the Frayers, I used different poems on the board and we went through them with the students raising one of three different colored papers to indicated simile, metaphor, or personification in the poem. I had never used that activity before but I really liked it because I could see what each individual student was thinking. Then we moved on to previewing three different poems in the text book that we were going to be working with that day. For my lower level classes, we just read the poems out loud and went over difficult vocabulary but for my academic classes we went more in-depth with the poems. From there I made a graphic organizer for students to fill out with similes, metaphors, and personification from the poems (“Students can’t learn without graphic organizers!” – LFS). I gave directions (very detailed with examples – I’m getting better at it!) then students had time to complete the graphic organizer with their partners.
Our last task was a creative representation of a time in one of the poems when the poet used personification. I made an example of a sun painting a picture of a desert because the poem said, “The Sun paints the desert…” The students had so much fun with their projects and I wish I could show all of them to you.
I didn’t have too many classroom management problems because I kept the class flowing. Which reminds me, I finally experienced flow in my class! It was great!
So, I guess the moral of my story today is that I had never realized how much “stuff” goes in to planning and performing a lesson! But I’m starting to catch on and it’s going well!
My very good day was Tuesday, when I started a new lesson on personification. I started planning my lesson by thinking of how I could differentiate (which is one of my downfalls). I tried to incorporate movement, writing, drawing, and speaking. So, then I thought about LFS and I thought: review.
My lesson started with a poem by Shel Silverstein called “The Furniture Bash.” I chose that poem because it is fun and many of my kids love Shel Silverstein and also because the poem has tons of personification. I read the poem out loud and had students guess what we were going to learn about. Many of them guessed personification right away (which helped me gage their prior learning). Then we moved on to a Frayer. I had already used a Frayer twice and the kids really liked it and I like the routine of doing mostly the same thing. I could tell that the lower-level students really liked the Frayers because they could use examples and draw and I think they liked the routine of using the same graphic organizers again. It gave them a sense of ownership.
After the Frayers, I used different poems on the board and we went through them with the students raising one of three different colored papers to indicated simile, metaphor, or personification in the poem. I had never used that activity before but I really liked it because I could see what each individual student was thinking. Then we moved on to previewing three different poems in the text book that we were going to be working with that day. For my lower level classes, we just read the poems out loud and went over difficult vocabulary but for my academic classes we went more in-depth with the poems. From there I made a graphic organizer for students to fill out with similes, metaphors, and personification from the poems (“Students can’t learn without graphic organizers!” – LFS). I gave directions (very detailed with examples – I’m getting better at it!) then students had time to complete the graphic organizer with their partners.
Our last task was a creative representation of a time in one of the poems when the poet used personification. I made an example of a sun painting a picture of a desert because the poem said, “The Sun paints the desert…” The students had so much fun with their projects and I wish I could show all of them to you.
I didn’t have too many classroom management problems because I kept the class flowing. Which reminds me, I finally experienced flow in my class! It was great!
So, I guess the moral of my story today is that I had never realized how much “stuff” goes in to planning and performing a lesson! But I’m starting to catch on and it’s going well!
This week has gone really well (except for the fact that I have a VERY bad cold). Anyway, I wasn’t really sure what to talk about: LFS, lesson plans, classroom management… But, I think I want to focus on how all of these things come together = aka a very good day and I had one this week!
My very good day was Tuesday, when I started a new lesson on personification. I started planning my lesson by thinking of how I could differentiate (which is one of my downfalls). I tried to incorporate movement, writing, drawing, and speaking. So, then I thought about LFS and I thought: review.
My lesson started with a poem by Shel Silverstein called “The Furniture Bash.” I chose that poem because it is fun and many of my kids love Shel Silverstein and also because the poem has tons of personification. I read the poem out loud and had students guess what we were going to learn about. Many of them guessed personification right away (which helped me gage their prior learning). Then we moved on to a Frayer. I had already used a Frayer twice and the kids really liked it and I like the routine of doing mostly the same thing. I could tell that the lower-level students really liked the Frayers because they could use examples and draw and I think they liked the routine of using the same graphic organizers again. It gave them a sense of ownership.
After the Frayers, I used different poems on the board and we went through them with the students raising one of three different colored papers to indicated simile, metaphor, or personification in the poem. I had never used that activity before but I really liked it because I could see what each individual student was thinking. Then we moved on to previewing three different poems in the text book that we were going to be working with that day. For my lower level classes, we just read the poems out loud and went over difficult vocabulary but for my academic classes we went more in-depth with the poems. From there I made a graphic organizer for students to fill out with similes, metaphors, and personification from the poems (“Students can’t learn without graphic organizers!” – LFS). I gave directions (very detailed with examples – I’m getting better at it!) then students had time to complete the graphic organizer with their partners.
Our last task was a creative representation of a time in one of the poems when the poet used personification. I made an example of a sun painting a picture of a desert because the poem said, “The Sun paints the desert…” The students had so much fun with their projects and I wish I could show all of them to you.
I didn’t have too many classroom management problems because I kept the class flowing. Which reminds me, I finally experienced flow in my class! It was great!
So, I guess the moral of my story today is that I had never realized how much “stuff” goes in to planning and performing a lesson! But I’m starting to catch on and it’s going well!
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Hello all.
Like Ellen said, I can't believe that our second week is over! The week few by and I can't believe how much I have grown as a teacher in only a week.
Some things that I learned this week were WAIT-TIME. I'm not good at it - I'm not patient! I also learned how to respond to students who answer a question wrong. It's hard for me to take an answer that is wrong and turn it into a good answer. But it's important for 7th graders to know that they were sorta-right instead of saying "no, that's a horrible answer."
I had the opportunity to experience a team meeting that involved parents and psychologists this week. In my "team" there is a student (I'll call him Bob) who has been having a lot of difficulty. He has a learning disorder and he has behavioral issues. However, last Friday, his behaviors began to escalade to childish - "Well, Jill got to go and I don't get to go but she did. It's not fair!" and to mean - he began to bully those around him. Then on Monday, my first day of teaching, he had an inch wide about five inches long cut on both sides of his wrist. And he was taking his eraser and digging it open and spreading the blood on his paper. Let me take a moment and talk about myself -ON MY FIRST DAY OF TEACHING. Thank God that Mrs. Riddlemoser was in the room! Ok, back to Bob, so, my co-op called a team meeting about it where it was decided to bring in the parents. Well, the mother is a single mother who is just fed up with Bob's attitude and problems because she has two other kids at home. And the psychologist seemed to have nothing to say and the social work who comes to the house twice a week said, "Well, he just sits in the basement and plays games all night."
This child is screaming for attention - and no one wants to help him. In my last post I talked about PSSA nonsense and now I'm, again, talking about how the system isn't helping students. This is how the meeting went:
Person 1 - Well, I would like to help him but I'm not allowed to use such-and-such a paper to write him up.
Person 2 - It would be nice to help him but it's not inside my 4-walls.
Person 3 - I could see him being the kid who brings a gun to school but I don't know what his problem is.
Person 4 - I think we need to identify his problems before we begin to help him.
Person 5 - I don't care what his problems are as long as I have a plan to help him.
Person 2 - Well, Person 4 has the authority to blah-blah.
Person 4 - Not really, that would go to Person 6 (not present at the meeting).
Person 3 - Well Person 6 doesn't really care that much.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!?
I was two seconds away from pulling out my hair! Right now I would much rather be talking about LFS lesson plans and what a great time I'm having being a student teacher - but this is all I hear all day! These kids need help and no one will help them!
Ok, I'm sorry for my ranting - it's just so upsetting and annoying!
Seriously though, on the teacher side of it, I have grown two billion times over as a teacher this week. On Friday, Mrs. Riddlemoser was sick so I had all of the classes solely to myself and it went really well! It was a great way to end the week.
:)
Like Ellen said, I can't believe that our second week is over! The week few by and I can't believe how much I have grown as a teacher in only a week.
Some things that I learned this week were WAIT-TIME. I'm not good at it - I'm not patient! I also learned how to respond to students who answer a question wrong. It's hard for me to take an answer that is wrong and turn it into a good answer. But it's important for 7th graders to know that they were sorta-right instead of saying "no, that's a horrible answer."
I had the opportunity to experience a team meeting that involved parents and psychologists this week. In my "team" there is a student (I'll call him Bob) who has been having a lot of difficulty. He has a learning disorder and he has behavioral issues. However, last Friday, his behaviors began to escalade to childish - "Well, Jill got to go and I don't get to go but she did. It's not fair!" and to mean - he began to bully those around him. Then on Monday, my first day of teaching, he had an inch wide about five inches long cut on both sides of his wrist. And he was taking his eraser and digging it open and spreading the blood on his paper. Let me take a moment and talk about myself -ON MY FIRST DAY OF TEACHING. Thank God that Mrs. Riddlemoser was in the room! Ok, back to Bob, so, my co-op called a team meeting about it where it was decided to bring in the parents. Well, the mother is a single mother who is just fed up with Bob's attitude and problems because she has two other kids at home. And the psychologist seemed to have nothing to say and the social work who comes to the house twice a week said, "Well, he just sits in the basement and plays games all night."
This child is screaming for attention - and no one wants to help him. In my last post I talked about PSSA nonsense and now I'm, again, talking about how the system isn't helping students. This is how the meeting went:
Person 1 - Well, I would like to help him but I'm not allowed to use such-and-such a paper to write him up.
Person 2 - It would be nice to help him but it's not inside my 4-walls.
Person 3 - I could see him being the kid who brings a gun to school but I don't know what his problem is.
Person 4 - I think we need to identify his problems before we begin to help him.
Person 5 - I don't care what his problems are as long as I have a plan to help him.
Person 2 - Well, Person 4 has the authority to blah-blah.
Person 4 - Not really, that would go to Person 6 (not present at the meeting).
Person 3 - Well Person 6 doesn't really care that much.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!?
I was two seconds away from pulling out my hair! Right now I would much rather be talking about LFS lesson plans and what a great time I'm having being a student teacher - but this is all I hear all day! These kids need help and no one will help them!
Ok, I'm sorry for my ranting - it's just so upsetting and annoying!
Seriously though, on the teacher side of it, I have grown two billion times over as a teacher this week. On Friday, Mrs. Riddlemoser was sick so I had all of the classes solely to myself and it went really well! It was a great way to end the week.
:)
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Blog #1
Hello all.
First, I'll begin with my school and district. Gettysburg Middle School is a suburban school with about 300 students per class. The middle school is extremely LFS focused and houses sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. I’m student teaching at the 7th grade level. GMS has divided their teachers into “teams” with one teacher from each subject in each team. Teams are responsible for the students in their team. Although, this isn’t a fool-proof plan because some students get mixed into other teams. I think that the teams don’t create a sense of community with the teachers because teams do not work with other teams. There is a sense of “that’s not my problem because it’s not my team.”
My co-op is Jenn Riddlemoser. She is an effective teacher and the students respect her. Her teaching is different from mine because she uses a lot of group work and usually she has students work on their own pace to get a list of activities done. Whereas I enjoy being in front of the class and having everyone work together.
I have one “academic” class (block) and one “regular” block every day. I will be beginning a poetry unit on Monday – with a ton of PSSA prep involved. It has been very difficult trying to interpret poems and find a way to link them to PSSA preps. Anyway, more about planning later… The students in the academic class are slackers. They love to read (which is great) but they are non-responsive in class because they know they can get away with doing nothing. The “regular” classes are very well behaved and I believe they are bored with their classes (all classes). Mrs. Riddlemoser’s class is complete routine (I think routine is important but does get boring after awhile – you can only eat a turkey sandwich for lunch so many times). There are some “bad” kids = the ones who don’t care but they are well behaved!! They just like to get off topic! I find myself drawn to these kids (which doesn’t surprise me because I’ve always enjoyed working with the students labeled as “challenged” or “academically incompetent”).
The other class is a 50 minute exploratory class which is 10-12 students who didn’t score well on their pre-PSSA tests. It is a read-aloud class where Mrs. Riddlemoser reads aloud (“Chasing Redbird”) and prompts the students to predict, find synonyms, or learn new vocabulary. This class isn’t taught with an Essential Question or Unit Plan; the major point is to make it through the novel while discussing. I will be teaching the new novel when they are done with “Chasing Redbird” (hopefully in a week). I will start “The Hunger Games.” I haven’t read it yet. Has anyone heard of it?
Overall, I’m beginning to enjoy all of the students as I get to know their different learning styles. This week I’ve been mostly observing, lesson planning, grading, and spelling every word in the dictionary; “Miss Sheaffer, do you know how to spell ____?!”
Mrs. Riddlemoser recently got new literature books that she hasn’t touched yet. So, I began to plan out of the book THEN the supplies arrived. So, to make my point, I will list all of the supplies for this text book: 35 textbooks, 100 full lesson plans for teachers (done in LFS style), 35 grammar workbooks that go with the texts, grammar answer keys, 35 worksheet books (complete with graphic organizers for each text), worksheet answer key books, cds with every text read out loud, cd with all of the lesson plans, cd with text generators for each unit, and PSSA prep books that follow the unit.
Seriously. Ser-i-ous-ly.
What is the point of going to college and wanting to be a teacher? A monkey could teach these students with these books and supplies!
And, while I’m complaining about the state system of education – I spent two hours grading PSSA preps for MATH because the students just took their 4-site test (PSSA preps). Ridiculous.
Anyway, that’s my ramblings for this week. And, although I ended on a negative note, I really do love my placement and all of the teachers and staff. (And the library – it’s amazing). I can’t wait to start teaching on Monday!
P.S. I created a page for my students, it is: www.riddlemoser.wikispaces.com. Feel free to drop by sometime!
First, I'll begin with my school and district. Gettysburg Middle School is a suburban school with about 300 students per class. The middle school is extremely LFS focused and houses sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. I’m student teaching at the 7th grade level. GMS has divided their teachers into “teams” with one teacher from each subject in each team. Teams are responsible for the students in their team. Although, this isn’t a fool-proof plan because some students get mixed into other teams. I think that the teams don’t create a sense of community with the teachers because teams do not work with other teams. There is a sense of “that’s not my problem because it’s not my team.”
My co-op is Jenn Riddlemoser. She is an effective teacher and the students respect her. Her teaching is different from mine because she uses a lot of group work and usually she has students work on their own pace to get a list of activities done. Whereas I enjoy being in front of the class and having everyone work together.
I have one “academic” class (block) and one “regular” block every day. I will be beginning a poetry unit on Monday – with a ton of PSSA prep involved. It has been very difficult trying to interpret poems and find a way to link them to PSSA preps. Anyway, more about planning later… The students in the academic class are slackers. They love to read (which is great) but they are non-responsive in class because they know they can get away with doing nothing. The “regular” classes are very well behaved and I believe they are bored with their classes (all classes). Mrs. Riddlemoser’s class is complete routine (I think routine is important but does get boring after awhile – you can only eat a turkey sandwich for lunch so many times). There are some “bad” kids = the ones who don’t care but they are well behaved!! They just like to get off topic! I find myself drawn to these kids (which doesn’t surprise me because I’ve always enjoyed working with the students labeled as “challenged” or “academically incompetent”).
The other class is a 50 minute exploratory class which is 10-12 students who didn’t score well on their pre-PSSA tests. It is a read-aloud class where Mrs. Riddlemoser reads aloud (“Chasing Redbird”) and prompts the students to predict, find synonyms, or learn new vocabulary. This class isn’t taught with an Essential Question or Unit Plan; the major point is to make it through the novel while discussing. I will be teaching the new novel when they are done with “Chasing Redbird” (hopefully in a week). I will start “The Hunger Games.” I haven’t read it yet. Has anyone heard of it?
Overall, I’m beginning to enjoy all of the students as I get to know their different learning styles. This week I’ve been mostly observing, lesson planning, grading, and spelling every word in the dictionary; “Miss Sheaffer, do you know how to spell ____?!”
Mrs. Riddlemoser recently got new literature books that she hasn’t touched yet. So, I began to plan out of the book THEN the supplies arrived. So, to make my point, I will list all of the supplies for this text book: 35 textbooks, 100 full lesson plans for teachers (done in LFS style), 35 grammar workbooks that go with the texts, grammar answer keys, 35 worksheet books (complete with graphic organizers for each text), worksheet answer key books, cds with every text read out loud, cd with all of the lesson plans, cd with text generators for each unit, and PSSA prep books that follow the unit.
Seriously. Ser-i-ous-ly.
What is the point of going to college and wanting to be a teacher? A monkey could teach these students with these books and supplies!
And, while I’m complaining about the state system of education – I spent two hours grading PSSA preps for MATH because the students just took their 4-site test (PSSA preps). Ridiculous.
Anyway, that’s my ramblings for this week. And, although I ended on a negative note, I really do love my placement and all of the teachers and staff. (And the library – it’s amazing). I can’t wait to start teaching on Monday!
P.S. I created a page for my students, it is: www.riddlemoser.wikispaces.com. Feel free to drop by sometime!
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